Australian Open: Bright prospects thanks to Jule and Angie

Thanks to Jule and Angie! As comfortable as at the beginning of this season, German tennis has not started into a new season for a long time. And not with such high hopes for the first Grand Slam tournament of the year that has just begun.

Despite a two-month break, Julia Görges seems to have lost none of her new stability and confidence, and in Auckland she simply continued where she left off at the beginning of November 2017 – with convincing victories and a well-deserved cup win. Auckland illustrated the Görges-Wandel in particular, and where she had previously run after an overall success eight times in vain, it was now possible with the tailwind of the months of upswing. Görges trusts in herself and her strengths, she can be counted as one of the favourites for the Melbourne title.

However, this also applies to Angelique Kerber, who left the difficulties and worries of the previous year behind her with an energetic performance in Perth and a competitive opening in Sydney. Ideally, the two German model women will be involved until well into the final phase at the National Tennis Center in Melbourne – it will not be completely irrelevant how the draw with new, shortened seed lists for the two Northern Lights will turn out. With only 16 players still seated, high hurdles are conceivable right from the start. Without Serena Williams, the tournament, like the last three Grand Slams, is set to become a puzzle game about the Melbourne queen, a clear, prominent player is not in sight at the moment. It’s quite possible that another sensational winner will be swayed to the throne, such as Jelena Ostapenko in Paris or Sloane Stephens in New York.

Would such a scenario also be possible for the men, a winner almost out of nowhere? If at all, then the Australian Open was good for surprise moments, in any case for many surprise finalists – Rainer Schüttler was also one of them. In earlier years, however, this had to do with the somewhat lower status of competition, but today it seems almost unreal that someone like Andre Agassi did not want to travel far away to Australia for many years – before he later became permanent champion.

On top of that, the tournament is in a difficult situation right at the start of the season, after only two weeks of preparation. Against this background, the plans of the Australian Tennis Association, to put it mildly, seem strange, namely to place the Men’s World Team Cup in front of the Australian Open. This could lead to a situation where, at least in Australia itself, there would no longer be any serious preparatory competition in the men’s singles. And also the Grand Slam countdown for men and women down under would be completely torn apart. Change is really good for tennis, no question about it. But it should make sense.